National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. From Saturday, councillors across England will lose powers—powers to bring planning applications before elected committees. For communities like mine in Aldridge-Brownhills, which are already facing huge speculative development, this is a serious loss of accountability. My residents have faced an onslaught of applications in relation to green-belt sites, including York’s Bridge for 330 houses, Queslett Road East for 850, Barns Lane for 77, Longwood Lane for 78 and Bosty Lane for 550. Those are just some of them. These applications have brought the debate about the future of our countryside very close to people’s doors. These green spaces help to give our communities their identity. Residents want to know what development will mean for their already busy roads, school places and GP access. They are right to expect those questions to be properly considered before Ministers introduce sweeping changes, yet here we are, just days before the new rules take effect, still looking for answers.

It seems that of the outstanding applications for 2,350 homes across my constituency, 80% will be determined under the new rules and behind closed doors. Residents and councillors will not easily be able to ask questions of the developers or raise issues in open committee. Of course, we agree on the need for homes that local people can afford. I want brownfield sites brought back into use, with supporting infrastructure. As I have said time and again in this place and will probably keep saying, once agricultural land is built on, it is gone, and it is gone forever. I want to see planning consents built, not banked. That brings me to the current consultation on Walsall borough’s local plan.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Lady. I spoke to her beforehand, and I always look to be helpful by talking about what we do back home. In Northern Ireland, under section 31 of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, each of our 11 district councils is legally mandated to operate its own bespoke scheme of delegation. Although that gives local authorities excellent democratic autonomy over local developments, it has at times led to the exact regional inconsistencies in application processing times that the new English model explicitly seeks to correct. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the learnings from Northern Ireland’s process should be shared to achieve best practice in planning and hopefully address some of the very issues that she is highlighting?

[Wendy Morton]

I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he always makes useful contributions in Westminster Hall that allow us to reflect on and share our different experiences. To me, the fundamental thing is making sure that our communities feel that their councillors have a voice, rather than the democratic deficit that we are faced with. I thank him for his intervention.

Our local plan consultation closes on Monday, and over the last six weeks I have been encouraging residents to respond. I have been holding public meetings, helping with objections and making it clear to them that their views, whatever they are, matter, including when the plan goes before an independent inspector. But what message are the new regulations sending? Residents take the time to go through the documents, attend the meetings and help shape their area’s future, while the Government restrict their councillors’ ability to secure full and public scrutiny when an application arrives. That is not democracy in action—it is neither scrutiny nor accountability—so what is the point of asking communities to invest their time in a local plan if contentious decisions about its application are then to be taken behind closed doors?

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

I suspect I am doing neither the right hon. Lady nor myself any favours by saying I absolutely agree with her. It is our duty as MPs to robustly defend local democracy. Does she agree that, when the communities we represent and their directly elected councillors oppose speculative development, the answer is not to silence their voices but to secure genuine public consent with a higher standard of development that meets local needs and hopes for the future?

[Wendy Morton]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that he is not upsetting me with those comments—far from it. His point, that local democracy and local accountability matter, is exactly the one I am making. It is so important that we include local voices, because it is local voices that have local knowledge that can help to shape the community. If we want truly cohesive communities that work together, we need to make sure that their voices are heard—and that they do not have targets and housing imposed upon them.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Wendy Morton]

I am spoiled for choice.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her important speech. Recently, a development in my constituency for 8,500 homes that was due to go to the local planning committee was suddenly taken away from it, having been called in by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna). The decision now sits with the Secretary of State, taking this important decision, which will have a huge impact on the area, out of local hands.

This is clearly denying local democracy, given that we have locally elected councillors who know the impact this development will have on my constituency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is completely wrong to take those powers to influence local planning decisions away from local councillors, and that it is absurd that a Government who talk about increasing devolution are the ones taking these powers away from local councillors?

[Wendy Morton]

That is spot on. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. She mentioned accountability and democracy. As she knows, the Government are currently taking the Representation of the People Bill through Parliament. The Bill rightly tries to encourage increased participation and accountability in our electoral system. Does she share my concern that the role of councillors is undermined by these planning changes, that local people will lose confidence in the democratic checks and balances of local government, and that we therefore may see turnout and participation go down?

[Wendy Morton]

My hon. Friend is right. For a long time, it has concerned me that turnout at elections, particularly local elections, has been falling, and I do not believe the answer is simply to lower the voting age. Rather, we should be seeking to engage with people and communities on a cross-party basis. What we are seeing now is a Government who impose top-down targets, say it is all about devolution and go through the mayors, but when it comes to accountability and scrutiny, I cannot scrutinise the Mayor of the West Midlands. He does not even reply to my letters, yet he is getting more powers.

These planning measures come down to local councils, and once again, local councillors are losing their voice—our communities are losing their voices. How can we say that we want to engage with communities? How do we shape the future of our country and our communities if we are taking away transparency and accountability, which are the very foundations of good, strong democracy?

Delegation is a familiar concept. In fact, the Government’s own paper said that officers made 96% of planning decisions in the second quarter of 2024, but that cannot become how every application is determined. Where is the evidence about delays as a result of planning committee call-ins? How much delay arises from waiting for the committee, and how much from staffing shortages, outstanding technical advice or the complexity of the process?

Under the new rules, ordinary applications for up to nine houses on sites smaller than half a hectare must be decided by officers. Larger applications are not guaranteed a hearing either. Referral requires that the nominated officer and the chair of the planning committee agree and that a test of significance is met; if they disagree, the decision stays with officers.

Even reserved matters for a purely residential scheme of several hundred homes can be subject to mandatory delegation, so why exclude councillors from details that materially change the make-up of their own community? A ward councillor will know exactly why a proposal matters locally, but under the new rules they cannot make sure it is heard at committee. It would be helpful if the Minister could outline how the Government will ensure that the significance test is applied consistently. What can a councillor do when a well-founded referral request is rejected? How can it be that an application concerning a protected tree can still be eligible for committee consideration while an application for nine houses can be excluded? What principle explains that distinction? Why should councils be able to consider the future of a single tree—I am not saying that trees are not important—but not the circumstances of a housing development?

We then come to the issue of transparency. Will reasons for refusing to refer an application to committee be published before the application is decided, allowing time to raise an error? Reporting afterwards will give no comfort to concerned residents if permission has already been granted. As the Minister is undoubtedly aware—and I appreciate this topic is not entirely in her brief—some councils are seeking to preserve democratic oversight through informal councillor panels advising on planning applications. What assessment has the Department made of the risk of developers alleging predetermination when councillors express a view through those panels and subsequently participate in the gateway decision or determine the application at committee? Could the resulting legal challenges and delays undermine the very house building targets that the regulations are intended to support? I would be grateful if the Department published clear guidance so that councils can retain meaningful elected involvement without creating further uncertainty.

There is also the question of neighbourhood plans. One council leader told me their council has called for applications that conflict with an adopted neighbourhood plan policy to be eligible for committee consideration. Communities spend years and thousands of pounds preparing these plans before residents endorse them in a referendum. They deserve a route to elected scrutiny when an application conflicts with those policies. Will the Minister provide that safeguard, including for applications otherwise subject to mandatory delegation?

There is a similar concern about houses in multiple occupation, which are used all too often to house those decanted from asylum hotels. Councils introduced article 4 directions because they identified a need for greater control over conversions in particular neighbourhoods, yet applications brought into the planning system by those directions can fall within schedule 1 to the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, preventing elected members from determining them. Will the Minister clarify exactly which HMO applications must be delegated, and explain why an article 4 direction provides no exception? Where an application raises significant concerns about the concentration of HMOs, such as about parking or the loss of family housing, will the Government allow councillors to secure a committee hearing?

Let us not forget planning officers. They also deserve protection. They undertake difficult professional work, often with very limited resources. Moving contentious decisions away from committees has a real risk of leaving officers personally exposed. Councils are rightly asking what safeguards will protect officers from undue influence or pressure from developers, applicants and other interested parties. Will there be requirements to record substantive discussions, declare conflicts of interest and obtain a second opinion in contentious cases? What independent route will officers have to report improper pressure? Officers must act impartially, so how will the Minister prevent them from becoming a lightning rod for political criticism when elected council members have lost their decision-making role? The Royal Town Planning Institute has warned of the risk of increased abuse and public pressure. What support will be funded to protect staff and to help councils retain those important experienced planners?

Transparency protects officers and residents alike. People should be able to follow the evidence and understand who decided and why. Accessibility matters, too. Developers often have a planning consultant and a legal team, whereas residents concerned about an application only have the option to open the planning portal for the very first time. They should not need professional help to find out whether an application will reach committee, how to ask for scrutiny or whether their concerns have been considered. Will Ministers engage in a publicity campaign to update people on those changes and ensure that each authority has an easily understandable explanation of the new process on its website, including how residents can put their case where there is no committee meeting?

The Planning Inspectorate also has an important role. An inspector will examine whether the proposed local plan in my constituency meets legal requirements and is sound. Separately, inspectors determine many planning appeals, but how will local evidence about infrastructure and cumulative green-belt loss be considered through these processes? On another point of fairness, or rather the lack of it, applicants can appeal refusals, but objecting residents have no equivalent appeal on planning merits. Given that imbalance, why weaken scrutiny before the decision? What affordable option will residents realistically have if an application is wrongly kept away from the committee?

A separate part of this new scheme requires councils to consult the Secretary of State before refusing applications for 150 or more homes. How will that operate transparently? How can residents make representations? Ministers are creating an additional opportunity for Whitehall interference and involvement while restricting elected local councillors. That undoubtedly creates a democratic deficit. How does that sit with the Prime Minister’s promises on devolution and community empowerment? I do not see how it does. The Local Government Association’s Conservative group has organised a letter from more than 1,500 Conservative councillors calling for this scheme of delegation to be repealed; I put on record my thanks to them for that. Let us hope that the Prime Minister gives it his urgent attention when it is delivered to him at No. 10 tomorrow.

We all know that councils must comply with the law, but we must remember that agreeing to update their constitutions does not mean that they consent to these regulations or believe that they serve their communities. A Government talking about devolution should trust local representatives and communities. I hope that the Minister will reconsider these regulations. At the very least, the Government should restore an effective route to committee for contentious applications to protect neighbourhood plans and article 4 directions and provide clear safeguards for officers.

Before the scheme takes effect on Saturday, will the Minister commit to those changes and to publishing an assessment of the scheme’s impact ahead of the statutory review in 2028? My constituents are being asked to engage with their local plan by Monday. I want to be able to tell them that doing so will make a difference and that their elected councillors will still have a meaningful role when decisions are taken. That is the assurance that I am seeking.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for setting out her case so well. As their starting point, the Government need to be clear about what problem and which causes of that problem they are trying to solve. The vast majority of this House would agree that we need more house building, ideally with a particular focus on affordable and social housing, but there are many reasons why we are not hitting the Government’s housing targets, and they should not be lazily reduced to blaming the planning system or planning committees. The solutions that the Government seek to deal with that house building shortage should be based on evidence, not ideology. I fear that sometimes ideology dominates.

Removing local scrutiny in the way that has been described will not address the underlying causes of delay, which include capacity constraints in planning departments and the wider construction supply chain. We need a planning system that is simpler, more effective and capable of delivering homes that are well built, warm and cheap to heat, and that is accountable to local people and their representatives.

In South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils, the two district councils that cover my Oxfordshire constituency, the planning committees work well and there is no evidence that they are slowing development down. Some 95% of planning applications are decided by officers already. The majority of applications debated by the planning committees are also passed, but having complex and more contentious planning decisions made in public aids transparency and scrutiny over how planning policies are being applied. Vale of White Horse council has an excellent record on planning appeals: only 4.3% of appeals were allowed over the past two years, demonstrating that the decisions being made under the existing system are working well and are of a high quality.

In my constituency, we have seen huge rates of housing growth over the past 15 years. The key frustration for local people is that the infrastructure has not kept pace. A lot of the time, the local councils are not the ones able to dictate what we need in respect of housing, new railway stations or health infrastructure. Significant infrastructure is not something over which they have direct control.

Reducing the input of local communities and removing the ability of local ward councillors to call planning decisions to a committee could reduce the opportunity for those who understand our communities best to influence the infrastructure that developers provide alongside new homes. Over the past few years, there have been signs that house building is slowing down—the build rate of homes on some of the larger developments in my part of Oxfordshire has slowed—but the Government have misdiagnosed the cause of slower build rates. Planning committees are not the cause; there are wider economic causes and wider system causes. Developers will only build the homes that they are confident of selling. More expensive mortgages and potential buyers not feeling confident about investing in buying a home are significant factors.

I had the pleasure of serving on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, alongside the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), who is in this Chamber. We both have very fond memories of it—a very rewarding and fulfilling experience it was. Indeed, the Conservative spokesperson, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), also served on the Committee. It was on topics such as the one we are debating where there were common amendments among Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Green party Members. How often does that happen? If I were the Government, I would be very worried about uniting three such different parties.

The wider philosophical problem that we are failing to address as a Parliament and as a country is the tension between national need versus local concern. We need to start approaching that question intelligently. It is yet another debate that has become polarised, with two tribes shouting at each other and not really engaging in dialogue. Maybe we need more Ministers coming to areas affected by significant planning issues—I am not talking about a little cul-de-sac of new houses, but maybe significant infrastructure projects. If Ministers were more willing to come to our constituencies, they could make their case directly and debate and could challenge local opponents.

[Wendy Morton]

I would be delighted if the Minister came to Aldridge-Brownhills to see the impact that 20,000 homes will have across the borough, where we have a lack of infrastructure. I am still waiting for the funding for Aldridge railway station.

[Olly Glover]

I was amazed that the right hon. Lady did not mention that station campaign in her opening speech, but she has now rectified that omission. Ministers coming and engaging directly in that way could be part of a campaign of national persuasion to tackle the causes for resentment of development in a given area, but too often that is left to large corporate interests to do, which fuels mistrust. Indeed, in my constituency, the main advocate of what would be the second-biggest reservoir in the country is Thames Water, and of course that really does not help to persuade people of the case. It is one of the major reasons why there is significant local opposition.

As a result, I agree with the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills and the hon. Member for Hamble Valley that these changes being made by the Government run the risk of further eroding trust in local politics and local democracy. That is in none of our interests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

On that point about local leaders making decisions and showing leadership, does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we actually see that? In areas such as Walsall, what we do not see from the new leadership there—the Reform council—is strong leadership on this. One area that needs more pushback is the duty to co-operate with other areas. In our area, Birmingham’s housing target has gone down and ours has gone up. There are some towns and cities in neighbouring counties that actually want more housing and have more brownfield sites.

[Lewis Cocking]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. She is right to mention the duty to co-operate. Local leaders must step up to the plate. That is what they are elected to do, and that is what their residents expect.

Residents expect their local councillors to represent them, not to hide behind the duty to co-operate. They must co-operate across borders. They do not need powers taken away from them and given to unaccountable bureaucrats in distant council headquarters. Under the national scheme of delegation, proposals for under 10 properties will only be looked at by planning officers. This means that only in very limited circumstances will there be a way for local councillors to bring those decisions before a planning committee. Planning officers are not elected and are not accountable to voters.

Everyone knows that sometimes planning officers get things wrong and the decisions need to be overturned. I have seen it. I have served on a planning committee and the trouble is that, once a planning application gets approval and gets built, it is there for a very long time. It is very difficult to rectify it once it goes wrong. Do the Government really think that unelected officials are better placed to make decisions on local issues than elected councillors? People vote for their councillors to represent them on planning issues and can hold their councillors accountable at the ballot box. However, it is not just planning that is at stake, but trust in politics as a whole. Removing powers from elected representatives is an attack on British democracy, and the British people can see right through it.

Local action groups such as Goffs Oak Community Association are already fighting tooth and nail to stop their towns and villages being wrecked by inappropriate developments, which are often proposed without any sort of adequate infrastructure. The Government clearly do not care about their views, otherwise they would not be bringing in this national scheme of delegation. These changes also ignore the fact that planning committees are not just there to approve or deny applications. Councillors talk with local people and can address their concerns by putting conditions on development.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sally Jameson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. As hon. Members have identified, I am not the Minister for Housing. He is in another Committee as we speak, but I am pleased to respond on behalf of the Government and I will make sure that the strength of feeling and the questions that have been raised today are fed back.

[Wendy Morton]

I can assure the Minister that I will not persistently intervene. But on her last point, can she reassure me that if she is unable to answer questions that were asked today—I appreciate that this is not in her portfolio—she will ensure that the Minister for Housing and Planning responds to Members in this Chamber and the public in writing before the regulations come into force on Saturday? It is absolutely critical that Members here, and councillors across the country, fully understand their implications.

[Sally Jameson]

I will ensure that that request is fed back to the Minister for Housing, as well as the strength of feeling behind it. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing today’s important debate, as well as hon. Members for their contributions on the subject.

The modernisation of planning committees, as many will know, is a big part of the housing and infrastructure delivery that the Government intend. Our reforms are about creating a level playing field across the country to give certainty to communities and developers about the process their applications will follow. We recognise the vital role that planning committees play in providing local democratic oversight for important development decisions in their area. Our reforms were a key measure in the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and are intended to support planning committees in this crucial role so that they can be effective as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

I thank all Members across the House for their contributions. It is clear that there is a lot of cross-party support, but it is noticeable that some of those who protesteth about saving the green belt—namely, our Reform colleagues—are nowhere to be seen in Westminster Hall. I know who is fighting for residents and standing up to protect the green belt.